There is a weeping willow tree in my backyard. For sixteen years, I’ve watched it live. I mean really experience life.

I’ve watched it weather the storms, torrential rain, unforgiving heat and some of the worst weather Mother Nature can throw at it. I’ve watched limbs get ripped away. I’ve seen some of its roots pulled from deep in the ground. And somehow—some way, it keeps going. It doesn’t look exactly the way it did sixteen years ago. How could it?

Neither do I.

Most mornings, I sit with my Bible and look out at that tree. And there are moments when I swear the tree is looking back at me—communicating its wisdom. Unspoken, yet understood. Knowing.

I admire its majestic appearance—inner strength. Not because nothing has happened to it, but because so much has.

It has lost pieces of itself, yet it continues to grow. It has been bent, tangled, and worn without surrendering its natural beauty. It has endured all seasons and still knows what to do when the sun comes out. It knows its Source.

I Am the Tree.

And maybe in some ways, you are too.

We tend to focus on the leaves: the job, the relationship, the marriage, the decision, the disappointment, the thing happening in our lives right now. But a leaf is connected to a branch. The branch connects to the trunk. And beneath everything we can see are the roots. Our lives are like that. What is showing up today may be connected to something that started long before today. An experience. An expectation. A belief. A choice. A version of ourselves that once helped us survive, belong or simply keep going.

Coaching isn’t about digging up every root. It’s about paying attention to what keeps showing up. We follow what matters. We question what no longer fits and we leave room for possibility.

Your roots matter. They are part of your story. But they don’t get to decide where you grow next.

The storms will come.

Some seasons will take something from us.

And then, eventually, the sun comes back.

And we rise to meet it.